Korean Artist

Given the worldwide interest in sports and the extensive media coverage given them, many people may be familiar with Korean golf sensation Park Seri and Los Angeles Dodgers' ace pitcher Park Chanho. However, it is in the field of music and the arts that Koreans have contributed the most to world culture.
Violinist Sarah Chang is recognized the world over as one of classical music's most captivating and gifted artists. She first astounded the music world by appearing as a surprise guest performer with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta. She was eight years old at the time and had just played for Mehta two days earlier when he was so impressed that he immediately asked her to do the performance.
Since that eventful debut she has performed in the music capitals of Asia, Europe and the Americas and collaborated with nearly every major orchestra and with many of the world's most esteemed conductors. She has reached an even wider audience through her many television appearances, including several concert broadcasts, and her best-selling recordings.
Her first album, Debut, was recorded when she was nine, using a quarter-sized violin. Released in September 1992 to exceptional acclaim, it quickly reached the Billboard's chart of classical bestsellers. She has since released a handful of recordings, the most recent in March 1998. In recognition of her recordings, she was awarded a special 1993 Gramophone award as "Young Artist of the Year." In 1993, she received the German "Echo" Schallplattenpreis and the Royal Philharmonic Society of Music's "Debut" award and in 1994, the "Newcomer of the Year" prize at the International Classical Music Awards. Prior to those honors, she was presented the Nanp'a award, Korea's highest honor for a musician, in May 1991, and in May 1992, she became the youngest person to ever be awarded the Avery Fisher Career grant.
Another outstanding Korean violinist who has long wowed music lovers around the world is Chung Kyungwha. For more than 25 years, she has been one of the most sought-after musicians on the international stage, earning recognition as a performing artist of the very highest stature. The Sunday Times of London, the city where she resides with her family, has called her one of the most important contributors to the British cultural scene.
She left Korea at the age of 12 to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. After winning the Leventritt competition in 1967, she embarked upon her performing career in North America, appearing with many of the finest orchestras. She made her European debut in 1970 at the Royal Festival Hall playing Tchaikovsky with Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra. Her performance was so outstanding that they immediately booked her for three more London concerts, a tour of Japan and a television appearance. Engagements with the London Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestra followed and from then on her international career soared.
Since that time she has appeared in recitals with virtually all of the major orchestras and conductors throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Although she now restricts her performances to no more than 60 a year in order to devote more time to her family, she used to perform nearly 120 concerts each season. She has made numerous recordings and has earned a number of awards including a coveted Gramophone Award.
Chamber music plays a very important part in Chung's performing life as she often performs and records with her brother Chung Myungwhun, a pianist and conductor, and her sister Chung Myungwha, a world-renowned cellist. The Chung Trio, as the three are called, has been honored with the title Honorary Ambassador of the United Nations Drug Control Program.
Cellist Chung Myungwha graduated from Julliard and won first place in the cello division at the Geneva International Competition in 1971. She has since performed with the London Royal Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony and many other orchestras.
The Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Music Director of the Asia Philharmonic Orchestra, Chung Myungwhun began his musical studies as a pianist and made his debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of seven. He studied piano and conducting at the Mannes School of Music in New York. After winning second prize at the 1974 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow for piano, he went on to complete his conducting studies at Juilliard. In 1978, he became an assistant to the conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and in 1980, he was named an associate conductor. His career began to soar with his appointment in 1984 to Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Saarbr ken Radio Symphony Orchestra, which he held until 1990.
He has conducted many prominent European orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Paris, La Scala Orchestra and Concertgebouw. In North America he has made guest appearances with the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and Boston Symphony. He toured Asia in 1995 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and in 1996 with the London Symphony Orchestra.
For the last dozen or so years, he has devoted his attention to opera. He made his opera debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1986 and from 1987 to 1992 he was the Principal Guest Conductor of the Teatro Comunale in Florence, during which time he was awarded the Premio Abbiati by Italian critics in 1989 and the following year was awarded the Arturo Toscanini prize. He was the Music Director of the Opera de Paris-Bastille from 1989 to 1994 and for his outstanding work he was named "Artist of the Year" by the Association of French Theatre and Music Critics in 1991, and the French government awarded him the Legion d'Honneur in 1992 for his contribution to French opera.
In 1995, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) named him its "Man of the Year." In 1996, he received the highest cultural award of the Korean government for his contributions to Korean music. Chung now serves as Honorary Cultural Ambassador for Korea, the first in the Korean government's history.
Soprano Jo Sumi was discovered by the world-famous conductor Herbert von Karajan, who praised her as having a "god-given voice." Since her debut on the Italian stage in 1986, singing Gilda in Verdi's "Rigoletto" with Karajan directing, she has performed around the world and in all the major opera houses. She has made many outstanding recordings and in 1993 Italian critics named her "Best Soprano of the Year." A highly versatile singer, she has a vast repertoire of over 30 operas.
Jo went to Rome in 1983 to study voice at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia. In 1985, after finishing her five-year course in just two years, she won the top prize in four singing competitions in Italy.
The late modern classical composer Yun Isang (1917-1995) had an influence that went far beyond Korea's borders. In fact, many credit Yun with having put Korea on the world's musical map with operas and symphonies combining his inspirations from Oriental traditions with techniques of Western music. Although he spent most of his life outside Korea, his oeuvre is characterized by the lively, flexible tone of Korea's traditional music. By integrating the principles of European New Music into his Korean-inspired "main tone technique," he blended Eastern and Western attributes to create a composition style reflecting the Taoist eum(yin)-yang concept. He composed over 150 musical works including symphonies and operas, many of them inspired by political developments in Korea.
The son of a poet, Yun began to write music at the age of 14. After studying Western music in Korea, he studied voice, theory, harmony and composition in Japan from 1935 to 1943 when he returned to Korea to teach. In 1955, he won the Seoul City Award which enabled him to travel to Europe for further study. He studied in Paris from 1956 to 1957 and in Berlin from 1958 to 1959. He eventually settled in Germany and taught music composition at Berlin Hochschule fur Musik from 1970 until his retirement in 1985. In 1987, the then West German government awarded him its highest state medal, and to celebrate his 75th birthday in 1992, concerts featuring his music were held in several cities in Germany as well as in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan and North Korea.

Another composer, and one which Koreans hold very dear, is Ahn Eaktay (1905-1965) who wrote the music for Korea 's national anthem, "Aegukga." However, he is probably better known outside Korea for his Korea Fantasia, a long epic piece depicting the glorious feats and ordeals Korea experienced throughout its 5,000-year history that was first performed by the Irish National Symphony in 1938.

Ahn first studied music in Japan , majoring in cello. In 1930, he went to the United States for further study, first in Philadelphia and later in Cincinnati where he also played first chair cello with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He entered the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest in 1936. In 1937, he went to Vienna to study under Richard Strauss and that same year he took up the baton as the permanent conductor of the Mallorca Orchestra in Madrid . Thereafter, he served as guest conductor for more than 200 orchestras around the world.

In the field of Korean traditional music, perhaps no individual or group has been more in the international spotlight than Kim Duksoo and his percussion quartet Samulnori. Playing four Korean traditional percussion instruments - an janggu or janggo (hourglass drum), buk (barrel drum), jing (large gong) and kkwaenggwari (small gong) - the quartet combines traditional rhythmic constructs derived from the wandering bands of old with shamanistic ceremonies and modern compositions to create a unique musical experience that is both ancient and contemporary, energizing and mesmerizing, vigorous and athletic.

Founded in 1978, the quartet opened a new era in Korean traditional music and its staging and spawned a new genre of music that has come to be called Samulnori. Samulnori gave its first overseas performance in 1982 and since that time it has performed in concert on all the major continents. In addition, the quartet has performed and recorded with folk bands and percussion groups of various countries as well as with orchestras, classical and jazz ensembles, and big name jazz artists such as Pushkin, Steve Gadd and Nexus.

Surprisingly, Paik Namjune, the Korean-born artist known the world over as the "father of video art," began his career as a musician and composer studying at the University of Tokyo , the University of Munich , and the Conservatory of Music in Freiburg , Germany . Influenced by the composer John Cage, Paik's interests brought him into contact with an international movement of artists who sought to break down the barriers between high art and everyday life. He began combining music and art, and was attracted to video by the random quality of the television soundtrack. In 1963, he became the first person to exhibit "prepared" television sets. Since that time Paik has influenced contemporary art, video and television with works linking the worlds of art, media, technology, pop culture and the avant garde. A provocative and prophetic spokesman for new uses of television technology and for the relevance of TV to art, Paik has used television sets in startling constructions such as a cello, a bra, and eye-glasses and has designed installations composed of televisions transformed into aquariums and stacked as pyramids. He has made TV chairs and many versions of TV robots. Many of his works combine fast-paced video clips in montages programmed over a number of television monitors.

Paik's art can be found in museums and private collections around the world. In 1982, the Whitney Museum of American Art honored him with a comprehensive retrospective of videotapes, video sculptures, installations and performances. In 1993, he won the grand prize at the Venice Biennale and that same year the German monthly Kapitol named him one of the world's greatest artists. The U.S. cable network Discovery recently featured him and his works in a documentary.

Although he is not a musician, it is through the medium of the musical that best-selling writer Yi Munyol has most recently come into the international spotlight. The Last Empress, a Broadway-style musical based on his 1994 best-selling novel The Fox Hunt, opened to rave reviews at the New York State Theater of the Lincoln Center in August 1997 and has since been touring North America . Many of Yi's works have been translated into other languages and have drawn critical attention abroad.

Another writer who has attracted considerable attention in international literary circles is poet So Chongju. Translations of his poems have been published in the United States , Germany , France and Spain .

These people are just a handful of the many brilliant individuals who have contributed significantly to putting Korea on the world's cultural map as well as enhancing the nation's image in the global community. Their remarkable creativity, highly refined artistry and distinguished performances are a source of pride for all Koreans